It seems that I, along with all the females in the country, should be thanking Jade Goody. But first maybe the British public should ask themselves - how real is our interest in her plight? Or is this just more 'grief porn' for the masses?

Not so long ago, Goody was the ultimate Celebrity Untouchable, only useful to be occasionally ridiculed in photo spreads about bad shoes or sweat patches, or apologise yet again for bullying Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in the Big Brother house. A year or so on, Goody was still all but excommunicated from the world of celebrity; the standard reaction to her name would be a mewl of disgust.

Odd then, even rather distasteful, that since the announcement of her aggressive cervical cancer, we suddenly can't get enough of her. Even odder, perhaps, that some appear to be blaming Goody for this.

What does it say about British society that we have such a powerful mawkish streak? Nor does it take the death of an uber-icon such as Princess Diana to inspire it. Never mind the Queen of Hearts - this runs all the way through the celebrity alphabet from A list through to Z. Moreover, say what you like about the 'over-sentimental' Americans, but even they are more temperate in such matters.

When Paul Newman died, there was certainly interest and grief in the US, but there wasn't the kind of eye-dabbing, nose-blowing weepathon of the kind you'd expect over here. It has long struck me that not only are the British ambulance chasers, but that we're not averse to waiting patiently at the depot for the ambulance to leave. At the risk of being facetious, there is almost an element of: 'Ooh, someone's really poorly; let's make a day of it.'

Indeed, one wonders how former EastEnders Wendy Richards must be feeling about the media coverage of the return and spread of her cancer? Richards reacted in a no-nonsense manner by saying she was furious about its return and bringing forward her wedding to last Friday. One hopes the event was not marred by the grisly sense of media countdown that now dogs 'Battling' Wendy's every move.

It has been suggested to me that celebrities such as Goody and Richards can often seem more real than the real people around you and this goes some way to explaining the exaggerated public reaction to their health problems. However, it also shames those who criticised Goody for going too public with her plight, to the point of giving paid interviews to publications such as OK! magazine.

Are we seeing here the flipside to the British appetite for grief-porn? As in: it's all very well for the public to circle like vultures, and for the media to use it to shift product, but somehow déclassé for Goody to be proactive? Its almost as if she should eschew such tacky behaviour and instead lie in state, awaiting her fate, like some 'Bermondsey Evita', all the more worshipped because she is quiet and still. Phooey to that, Goody evidently thought, and we should be grateful she did.

The squeamish (and, yes, I do mean men) should maybe look away now for I must speak of 'down there'. Which brings me to why females should be thankful to Jade. How many of us sheepishly made a long overdue appointment for a smear test when we heard about what had happened to Goody? I did, scuttling to the GP the first chance I got. By the same token, how many people immediately stopped umming and aahing about the new cervical cancer vaccination for young girls and realised it was a great idea?

This is what Jade has achieved with her horrible health luck, 'too public stance' and supposedly tacky OK! interviews - a heightened awareness of cervical cancer that has probably been more powerful than a 100 NHS campaigns combined. Similarly, Richards has underlined the need for vigilance even after you've got the all-clear.

Indeed, if we feel the need to criticise, we should maybe take a look at that element of ourselves that likes to gawp. Not that this necessarily means we should stop. In a roundabout way, the part of us that reacts to Jade's story is probably the same part that sends money to charity appeals.

In a nutshell, there is nothing bad, and plenty good, about the ability to feel empathy for a complete stranger - so long as we're aware that what is happening isn't an old soap plotline of Wendy's or a PR stunt of Jade's. So long as, just like what's happening to them, our sympathy is real.

Suffering from BSF? Don't worry - you're not alone

As if the credit crunch weren't tough enough, our house seems to have come down with Boxed-Set Fatigue (BSF). For the benefit of the uninitiated, BSF is what happens when you can't really afford to go out anymore, so you and your other half stay in and work your way through sundry boxed sets of 'comedy and popular drama', until suddenly, one night, sprawled in bed, bickering and slapping each other's hands away from the remote control, your bodies half-submerged in discarded discs, you realise you just can't take it anymore.

With financial meltdown all around, you might think this is small beer, but ask any long-term couple - lack of synergy in such an area can be corrosive. I still bear the psychological scars of realising that The Sopranos boxed set I believed we were enjoying together had, in fact, been wolfed down secretly by my partner, resulting in him having to fake watching the series with me. Ditto, Curb Your Enthusiasm, where a bit more curbing and a lot less enthusiasm would have been nice. But those were our glory days, when we actually managed to finish the damn things.

Where BSF is concerned, it turns out that men are weak, leastways not as strong as woman. A certain someone keeps collapsing into unconsciousness during, of all things, The Wire. Currently, it's taking us an average of three nights an episode. Sometimes he refuses to watch it at all and I'm forced to behave like some DVD version of sex starved Yootha Joyce in George and Mildred: 'Oh come on, just one episode!'

On the bright side, maybe it's a zeitgeist thing, one of the hidden costs of the credit crunch: skint couples imploding under the strain of staying in to save money and ending up watching too many boxed sets together. In such circumstances, is it any wonder one ends up with compatibility buckling, differences emerging? All over the country, couples are locked in their own poignant Neil-Babs moment: 'You don't watch "previously unseen footage" with me anymore.'

Alternatively, those couples afflicted with BSF could stop being so pathetic: defy the credit crunch, ditch the DVDs, and go out - to laugh, talk, who knows, perhaps even rediscover each other? But let's hope it won't come to that.

I've only got eyes for one tiger and it's not the one with whiskers

How selfless is Vladimir Putin in continuing to share his midlife crisis with us? The former Russian president is fast becoming the Charles Dance of international politics - forever inappropriately disrobing and looking 'virile' out of context. I may have to get a special corkboard to keep up with my ever-increasing stockpile of Vlad 'I've still got it!' Putin photos.

While some might argue that the infamous topless hunting shots of Putin more than hit the spot, Vlad, a recent birthday boy, just keeps on giving. There was that fearless posing with one of his presents, a Siberian tiger cub. 'She eats meat,' Vlad explained. Intriguing. There is also a brand new DVD, entitled Let's Learn Judo With Vladimir Putin, in which he struts around in white judo jammies, throwing opponents to the floor and opining: 'The practice of struggle permits compromises and concessions. But they are possible only if they are on the road to victory.' Quite.

I, for one, don't mind admitting it took many milliseconds to tear my eyes away from the sheer buffness of the man whose decisions regarding Chechnya and Georgia made Robert Mugabe fleetingly resemble the world's second least reasonable man. More seriously, while Putin displays all the signs of being as crazy as a cut snake, he makes our lot look like a sorry shower. What do our ex-premiers ever do with their post-power years except sit on vague-sounding international committees, or stick their snouts in the lecture circuit trough? By contrast, Putin is hurling about men half his age and rambling away gnomically, like Eric Cantona playing Colonel Kurtz in some judo-themed Apocalypse Now. You've got to admit he's different; one could even say special.

But is this enough for Vlad? Putin will surely need another challenge and may disappear to go native in some dense jungle, with a knife between his teeth and a poem in his soul. We must enjoy him while we still can.

· This article was amended on October 26 2008. Vladimir Putin is the former President and current Prime Minister of Russia, not the 'former premier' as we said in the article above. This has been corrected.